Beatriz Luna, PhD, Receives the 2022 Provost’s Award for Excellence in Doctoral Mentoring
Beatriz Luna, PhD (Staunton Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry and Professor of Psychology), has been selected as a recipient of the 2022 Provost’s Award for Excellence in Doctoral Mentoring. This award annually recognizes outstanding mentors who have had the greatest impact on students seeking research doctorate degrees.
Dr. Luna is an internationally recognized developmental neuroscientist. She is a world leader in studies of the neural basis of cognitive development and a pioneer in the use of multi-modal neuroimaging methods to identify the brain systems that undergo developmental specialization in the transition from adolescence to adulthood, a developmental period when psychopathology often emerges. Dr. Luna is the founder and director of the Laboratory of Neurocognitive Development, and a member of the Center for Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh (CNUP) and the Carnegie Mellon University Center for Neural Basis of Cognition (CNBC) training faculty. She has mentored or co-mentored nearly 50 graduate students during her career, and is well known for her thoughtful and engaging approach to mentorship, which emphasizes robust scientific discourse—she challenges her mentees to fearlessly conceive and develop innovative ideas to promote new lines of research for addressing important questions of science rather than opting for what may appear to be safer approaches. Dr. Luna generously provides the intellectual support and infrastructure to help young scientists accomplish their scientific and professional goals, encouraging them to apply their unique perspectives and skills to projects that will move the field forward. The success of Dr. Luna’s approach to mentorship is evident from the distinguished career trajectories of her mentees—after earning their doctorate degrees, many of her graduate students have been recognized as rising stars in the field of neuroscience.
Exemplary of Dr. Luna’s active involvement and the productivity of her graduate students are the numerous academic products resulting from their collaborations with her and other mentees. Dr. Luna’s emphasis and encouragement for graduate students to pursue multidisciplinary collaboration with faculty has resulted in numerous peer-reviewed publications, reviews, and presentations co-written by her and multiple mentees at national meetings and scientific conferences. Her impressive publication portfolio includes over 50 peer-reviewed articles co-authored with graduate students appearing in important scientific journals including Nature Communications, Biological Psychiatry, and the American Journal of Psychiatry.
“Dr. Luna is an outstanding researcher and an exceptional mentor committed to nurturing the scientific careers of her students and providing them with the skills, tools, and guidance to excel in the future and to make valuable contributions to the field of neuroscience. She is eminently deserving of the Provost’s Award for Excellence in Doctoral Mentoring,” said David Lewis, MD (Chair, Department of Psychiatry).
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Luna!